---

name: configuration-and-cli description: "Define, update, inspect, and troubleshoot Sacred configuration and experiment command lines." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: MIT

Sacred Configuration And CLI

Use this sub-skill when the task is to define Sacred configuration, apply or inspect config updates, route experiment commands from the command line, or diagnose CLI/config parsing behavior for Sacred 0.8.7.

Read and run map

• Read references/configuration-and-cli.md when designing config scopes, config dictionaries/files, named configs, config hooks, API config_updates, or the order in which Sacred resolves configuration.
• Read references/api-and-command-reference.md when translating a Python API run into CLI syntax, using built-in commands, choosing flags, adding a custom cli_option, or routing custom/ingredient commands.
• Read references/troubleshooting.md when with arguments parse unexpectedly, print_config reports added/typechanged values, config keys are rejected, a ConfigScope fails, nested config is read-only, a command is unknown, or YAML config files fail.
• Run scripts/sacred_config_cli_probe.py after installing Sacred to verify the current Python can execute print_config, CLI updates, a named config, a custom command, and a custom CLI option without external services.

Scope and routing

This sub-skill owns:

• @ex.config config scopes, ex.add_config(...), config files, config dictionaries, @ex.named_config, ex.add_named_config(...), and @ex.config_hook.
• Programmatic Experiment.run(config_updates=..., named_configs=..., options=...) and Experiment.run_commandline(argv=...) config behavior.
• CLI with updates, dotted notation, named configs, built-in commands, command routing, CLI flags, and custom cli_option handling.

Route elsewhere:

• Experiment object lifecycle, Run semantics, captured function internals, resources, and artifacts belong to experiment-core.
• Observer storage schemas, run directory contents, metrics, artifacts, and external observer setup belong to observers-and-logging.
• Reproducibility, dependency/source capture, stdout/stderr capture modes, clean repository enforcement, and randomness belong to reproducibility-and-capture.

Fast operating pattern

1. Define defaults first with a config scope or add_config.
2. Add optional variants with named configs.
3. Use print_config before a real run to inspect the effective config and any suspicious changes.
4. Use quoted with updates for strings, lists, dictionaries, booleans, and nested dotted paths.
5. Prefer adding intentional new keys to the default config instead of relying on --force.
6. If a command fails to route, run help and print_named_configs before changing experiment code.